Saturday, January 05, 2008

1624 Recognizing Faces

Saturday, January 5, 2008

I caught a piece of The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet yesterday morning, a segment on people who have difficulty recognizing faces (prosopagnosia, also called face blindness - go to the link for a description).

It interested me because I frequently don't recognize people out of context, or if they've changed their hair or some other aspect. I mostly recognize people I've known a while by how they move, or by their voices. It takes a long time, long exposure, for me to recognize them by face.

I see a lot of dancers in costume, and I'll recognize them again by their style of costume and how they dance, but I'm very confused when I see them out of costume. I don't know who they are. Same with many women I met in dance classes. I don't recognize them outside of class.

When I go to Mensa regional gatherings, I am often warmly greeted by people who seem to be complete strangers to me. I have no idea where or when we met. If they tell me, then I remember the conversation or activity and I can place them - but rarely just by appearance, unless their appearance is very unusual somehow.

(I've always known I have a serious problem with names. It may be not a problem with names, but a problem attaching the name to a face. Or maybe not. I've actually forgotten my daughter's name, and I GAVE it to her - so don't tell me it's just a lack of attention!)

I've always been amazed by police lineups. I can't understand how someone can look at a bunch of people, and pick out one with whom they had a brief run-in. I know I would never be able to do that. I might be able to say "Not number 1, and not number 4", but I would never be able to say definitely anyone else. Ditto for police sketches. I have occasionally thought about how I would describe someone I know well, and I don't think I could do it. I'm not sure I could pick out my own eyes or mouth from a book of eyes and mouths.

There have been times that I've been with a man I've been dating for a while, and he looks different somehow, maybe tired, maybe just an expression I hadn't seen before, and I have a flash of paranoia, "Is this the same guy? Could this be his twin brother?" I actually suddenly don't recognize him. Really. I'm not talking virtually. It's scary. [Later update - Wow! Turns out that's an actual condition, with a name! Capgras Syndrome.]

Well, anyway, that's why I stopped and watched the show.

Mike, the male host, seemed to have difficulty understanding the problem. He thought the guests didn't see faces at all, like they saw a blank where faces were, or the faces were blurred. Juliet, to her credit, finally figured out that he was hung up on the word "blindness", and told him to think of it as "face amnesia". That made more sense. It's not that you don't see the faces, it's that you don't remember them.

I went to the prosopagnosia web site, where they have some tests to see how well you recognize faces (at http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/index.php - they do want your name and email address, but I think they're safe).

Actually, I didn't do that badly on the face recognition tests. I thought I did VERY badly, because I mostly guessed, I swear I never saw any of those faces before, in fact when they were repeated in the first part I wasn't aware they were being repeated, but apparently most of my guesses were good. I scored in the 40%ile on all, which means that about 60% of the people taking the test did better than I. That puts me worse than average, but not a lot worse. (Except the "famous faces" section, where I scored at the 30%ile, which means 70% did better than I. I was pretty bad on that.)

I'm interested in how others do, and how it compares to how you expected to do. Leave a comment. Remember, if you select "anonymous", a password is not required.
.

3 comments:

Chris said...

Percentiles 80-80-70

That was quite difficult for me. I felt I was going to score lower because I have a horrible time with faces/names. But therein lies the difference. This was just memory recall from back to back brief exposures shortly afterwards. It's like meeting someone at a party and recognizing them later that evening, but six months later....forget about it.

Really interesing test. Your post reminded me of the old joke where the church is attempting to replace their bell ringer. (Punch line: I don't know his name but his face sure rings a bell.)

Becs said...

One thing I learned from an actor - when I go to interviews, I always wear something that I had worn on the first interview, whether it's a pin or necklace or blouse. People won't necessarily remember the face, but they do tend to remember the biggish gold initial pin or the pink sweater.

~~Silk said...

Wow, Chris - 80-80-70 was a really good score, significantly better than average (in %iles, 50 is where most people cluster on the bell curve). It was "just" memory recall, as you point out, but people who have prosopagnosia DON'T remember faces. If I meet someone at a party, and then see them a half hour later, IF THEY CHANGED CLOTHES OR HAIRSTYLE there's a fair chance I won't recognize them. I might not remember having met them by face alone, even minutes later. Unless there's something unusual about their face.